Architect to remove ‘crosses’ from TPS elementary school

An architect is removing a design element from a new elementary school that looked liked the Christian cross.

A photo shared on the Toledo Free Press Facebook page on Jan. 23 by David Eichenberg showed what appeared to be a cross design on the exterior gymnasium walls of the new Beverly Elementary school that is under construction by Toledo Public Schools (TPS).

Beverly Elementary (click photo to enlarge)

TPS was contacted by Toledo Free Press on Jan. 23 and provided a copy of the photo submitted by Eichenberg. On Feb. 14, James Gant, chief business manager for TPS, told Toledo Free Press during a telephone interview that the cross design was not part of the original plans, and that the design was to have been what could be described as a plus sign.

“The architect will submit a fix to the design; they have indicated it will be an easy fix,” Gant said.

Gant said TPS is not paying for the fix.

“The only issue is it may have to wait until the weather breaks,” Gant said.

He said he had not received any complaints about the design from parents or the community and that he expected the architect to submit a plan for the fix by the end of business day Feb. 14.

Eichenberg said he had contacted several TPS Board of Education members, but had not heard back from any.

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In answer to James Gant: The cross members of a plus sign are most usually all of equal length while Christian symbols elongate the vertical member below the cross piece. The picture is that of Christian crosses on a public school.

I hope that this was simply a case of the architect re-purposing a previous gym plan that had been done for a parochial school and was just a lack of attention to detail rather than someone making an unconstitutional statement.

Too true, jdcarling, our culture lacks depth already, I think the idea of the little nippers having their learning experience take place in an inspiring style of architecture, not just a cheesy boring poor knock off of Frank Lloyd Write-esque crap with what ‘was to have been what could be described as a plus sign” (yeah, right, sure, stick to that story, a$$holes! so where’s the -, x, and / signs!?!?, lol) worth a little extra $$ be spent on the brick and mortar-but be careful not to give too much to the sports facilities, a disturbing trend of imbalence. Part of the problem with the Public Indocrination, uhh, education, System is that the kids know they’re treated as widgets in the education factories and only represent $$$ to the politians and bureaucrats and resent it (at least my friends and I did whay back when, can’t imagine that today’s kids would feel any different…).

i saw a star on a new building the other day and got scared of masons, then i saw a pentagram on another and thought the wickans were out to get me, then, some sixpointed thing that i was sure was an invitation to turn jewish, and then…………

David is nothing but a starving artist who has nothing better to do with his time than stir up controversy. I propose he pay for the removal since he is, really, the only one bothered by the misinterpretation. If we had to respond to every conspiracy theorist out there nothing would ever be done! You, David, are causing an already underfunded school system to pay for extra work that doesn’t need to be done in the first place. Take your grudge elsewhere, maybe in the artist community, where it might be appreciated for what it is…stupid.

A friend of mine commented: “I guess now they’re going to remove lower case “t”s from everything….seriously, where do they find the time?”

I agree. So I guess, becasue of separation of church and state, and since they teach the alphabet in school, the lover case ‘t’ should be removed because it looks like a cross! Outrage! Bookshelves should be redesigned if they look like a cross! Crossmembers on structures should be redesigned! Just make everything look like a circle, but don’t let the circles intersect because it might form a cross.

Wow! It’s scary to see how angry people seem to get when they can freely comment on something that someone else has done.
They have of course exercised their right to make someone else have to do something they don’t want to too.
Er, um … does anyone else notice the lack of correct spelling or grammar here?
Not to mention the verbal bullying.
Interesting, since we are talking about a school building after all.
I thought we were teaching the children academic knowledge and a little bit about the correct way to act and interact with each other.